


if we can make it through the night (we'll see the sun)

by xavierurban



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dumbledore's Army, F/M, Gen, PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, rated m for references to violence; torture; and the war, references to past michael/cho
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-28 09:20:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xavierurban/pseuds/xavierurban
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Drabbles and ficlets about Michael Corner's life after the war. May be a while before the pairing comes into play. Pieces may or may not be posted in chronological order, but they will always have a timestamp on them for reference.</p><p>Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with J.K. Rowling or the Harry Potter franchise. Any names, places, etc. that you recognize are not mine and I take no credit for them. Not for profit. Title from March On by Good Charlotte.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. May 1998

Michael spends three weeks at St. Mungo's following the Battle of Hogwarts, and it's during this time that he discovers the truth about Neville's parents. The revelation sends a whole new wave of horror and admiration crashing down on him when he thinks about the punishments that his friend (for the Gryffindor can no longer be called a mere acquaintance or peer) endured at the hands of the Carrows and the Slytherins.

But, more than that (and perhaps a bit selfishly), he can't help but wonder how he could be so lucky as to have retained his sanity when they had not.


	2. May/June 1998

Michael doesn't repeat his seventh year at Hogwarts; instead, he spends his time at St. Mungo's reading, and teaches himself the lessons he ought to have learned in the previous eight months (he had still learned things, but they had been lessons of a different scale. Lessons like how to stand his ground in the face of fear; how to perfect healing charms and draughts; and that, sometimes, doing the right thing means making reckless, stupid choices). He reads, and he reads, and he reads, and when his friends visit (the ones who aren't patients themselves), he makes them quiz him. He ascertains that he knows the theories backwards and forwards so that he'll have no trouble when he's able to put them to practice.

He sits his N.E.W.T.s two weeks after he's discharged from the hospital (and passes them all with flying colours).


	3. May-September 1998

The nightmares aren't a new development, not anymore, and Michael knows that they are, to some degree, a normal by-product of the traumas that he has both survived and witnessed. So he gives himself three months from the end of the final battle before he acknowledges that something might truly be off; then he does the sensible thing, and seeks out a psychiatrist with a background in the wizarding world (he knows what the problem is, but he can't begin the healing process without receiving an expert's diagnosis first).


	4. November 1998

He hears about the position from Anthony, who’d heard it from his father. It’s nothing glamorous – it’s little more than a lab assistant, really: running lab reports and keeping records for the Potioneers and Researchers at St. Mungo’s – but it will get his foot in through the door. Michael knows that he’s smart, knows that he’s a good, hard worker, and he has no doubts that he can prove himself worthy of promotion. He wins the job with ease, and just hopes that it won’t take very long for him to advance.

It isn’t that he doesn’t see the job as important (because it is, all aspects of the research process are); it’s just that he finds it mundane. It doesn’t captivate his mind, doesn’t require any higher thought, and the record keeping gets tedious. Repetitive. And that just won’t do. Michael isn’t built for that kind of routine, mechanical work; he needs something that enraptures him – _involves_ him, not only physically, but mentally, too – and keeps his thoughts occupied and focused (and it’s no longer a matter of boredom, not like it was in his youth. These days, with nothing happening to occupy his thoughts, he has little else to do besides _remember_.

He doesn’t want to remember).


	5. November 1998 (2)

The snow has been falling for hours, but it isn’t storming, and there’s no rush to be home. Instead, it’s the kind of snow that makes Michael think of mugs of tea and girls bundled up in scarves and hats, laughing as they try to catch the flakes on their tongues. Later, he’ll think that it was only fitting that he should run into Cho as he weaves his way through the streets of Hogmeade (he remembers walking those very streets with her during the winter of his sixth year, and there’s an ache in his chest that isn’t from the cold)-

-and he truly does ‘run into her’; she’s leaving Tomes and Scrolls, her eyes downcast as she pulls on her gloves, and Michael is equally distracted, his gaze is sweeping over a sign on the shop’s window as he approaches.

He apologises instantly, reaches out to steady her as she skids on a patch of ice hidden beneath the snow, and Michael’s breath catches as she looks up to meet his gaze (her own apology gets lost beneath the whistle of the wind).

_‘Cho.’_

His voice sounds reverent, even to his own ears, and a blush rises in his cheeks as he drops his arms back to his sides and slips his hands into the pockets of his coat. Conversation comes awkwardly, at first, but it isn’t long before they settle into the natural ease that has always existed between them. The books he was meaning to pick up can wait, he decides, and Cho agrees to accompany him to Madam Puddifoot’s when he asks (she doesn’t call him out on his choice, but she knows that he remembers it’s where they spent their first off-grounds date). The shop is as tacky as ever, but it feels familiar in a way that much of Hogsmeade no longer does. They’ve barely seated themselves when Madam Puddifoot approaches, and Michael places their order while Cho settles in; he doesn’t need to ask what she wants, he still knows her order like the back of his hand (he doesn’t stop to consider that, like the scars that have changed his skin, so too may her tastes have changed).

He shrugs out of his own winter wear when the hostess walks away, then turns his attention back to his ex-girlfriend. He forces himself to fake a smile and offers his congratulations when his eyes fall on the diamond ring on her now bared left hand (but it’s too little, too late, and Michael knows that she catches the pain that flashes through his eyes when he first sees it). The sinking feeling in his stomach follows him home that night (and keeps him awake until the sun has already come up).


	6. December 1998

It’s the middle of December when Padma and Parvati round up a gathering of their classmates and the lot of them apparate to a small graveyard just outside of Yorkshire. Parvati dissolves into hysterics the moment they arrive, and Michael takes up the mantle of seeking out the correct grave as Padma tends to her sister. It doesn’t take as long as he expects it to, but he supposes it makes sense that it’s one of the few graves not buried beneath the snow that’s been falling. The small bouquet of purple flowers resting against the headstone is fresh, a sure sign that other visitors had been and gone, and it’s that, more than anything else, that draws Michael forward.

“Hey, Lav,” he murmurs, beckoning the others towards him and letting Terry cling onto his arm as he eyes the delicate script that’s been carved into the stone, “Happy birthday.” Parvati’s wails grow louder as she throws herself over her best friend’s resting place, and Padma and Stephen both kneel down next to her, stroking her hair and her back as she cries. Michael tries to keep his expression blank as he watches the scene unfold, but when he finally closes his eyes against the bitter wind, he sees a flash of light brown curls surrounding pale, pale skin stained red, and a mangled, bloodied neck that make his entire body shake as he grimaces and opens his eyes.

He looks to his left hand when he feels a slight pressure against it, and then trails his gaze back up to meet Mandy’s eyes. “It’s okay,” she tells him, her voice barely a whisper, and squeezes his hand again. Michael nods (because what else can he do?) but it isn’t okay; no matter what anyone says, he can’t fathom that things will ever be okay again.


	7. December 1998 (2)

On Christmas Eve, Mandy sits him down and hands him a small case of empty vials. She takes another vial from her pocket and then lifts her wand, presses its tip to her temple. She whispers an incantation, and a whispy strand of silver matter seems to be drawn from her body as she pulls the wand away. She lowers it until she can drop the silver matter into the vial. She watches, for a moment, as it swirls, and then corks the vial and closes her fist around it.

It's a while before she speaks, her gaze slowly lifting until her eyes meet Michael's. "As wizards, we have the power to remove our memories without destroying or erasing them. There are devices - pensieves - that allow us to revisit them, should we see fit." Her gaze drops then, and she reaches up to run the fingers of her free hand through her hair. She goes on to tell him, "I think it would be good for you to- to forget, for a while. Not everything, but- but some things."

So she teaches him the spell, and when he goes home, Michael sits on his bed for three hours as he wracks his brain. He isn't sure what he's ready to let go of. It would be so easy to get rid of it all, to erase the sounds of screaming from his mind. To erase the streams of light that signify curses being cast all around him, and the memories of the Carrows. It would be so easy to take away the causes of the phantom pains that he can still feel some nights when he lies still in his bed. But he doesn't.

Instead, he rids himself of the bodies and faces that haunt his dreams. Lavender, with her face mutilated and her throat covered in bite-marks. Ginny, with her blood-matted red locks covering her face as she leans over the cold, motionless body of one of her brothers. Anthony, with blood streaked over his features, a deep gash splitting his chest and spurting more and more blood even as Terry and himself struggle to close it. Professor Lupin, lying cold and dead alongside the mother of their now-orphaned son. Colin, bloodied and even more still than the time he'd been petrified (because there had still been the steady rise and fall of his chest then). Harry, motionless in Hagrid's arms as the Dark Lord himself proclaims his victory. Countless others, all bloodied and mangled or still with cold, pale skin.

He doesn't forget them, doesn't forget the bravery or the sacrifices, but he takes those images from himself. And for the first time in a long time, he sleeps through the night.


End file.
